


A Different Way

by Xenotechie



Category: Warframe
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied Suicide Attempts, References to Depression, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2019-01-28 04:50:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12598556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xenotechie/pseuds/Xenotechie
Summary: And now, for something slightly different. In this short story, a Corpus Tech-Sergeant prepares a last stand which leads to events he never could have envisioned.This story was written in such a way that even a reader who has never played Warframe can understand it. Story spoilers have been avoided by a disturbing lack of pronouns.Originally posted on Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/7a6qk9/a_different_way/





	A Different Way

Three powerful floodlights shone upon the rectangular doorway. It was the only way into the room. It had to be, right? He made sure, he did, he definitely did.

Corpus Tech-Sergeant Coba Ayvee crouched behind a solid-looking piece of cover, flanked by his squad. His Supra was pointed towards the doorway, ready to fire.

He did all he could. Cover, firepower, proper lines of sight, a singular chokepoint, even traps, fashioned from a crate of plasma grenades in moment of panic-induced genius. A textbook defensive position. All there was to do was to wait for the enemy. Still, his hands shook with fear. Exosuit stabilisers barely kept his weapon unmoving. By Profit, it was only one of them, and...

Coba cursed his own weakness. He took the job for one simple reason: he wanted to fight the Grineer. Imagine: mowing down the pathetic clone armies of the False Queens, fighting to unite the Origin System under the one true faith!

At least, that's what the recruiter told him. The true military life was not... quite as glorious. In spite of that, it was still a life Coba enjoyed. The credits were more than good enough to support those he cared about. And no matter what happened, those short, fleeting, glorious moments of combat made it all worthwhile. But, one day, the Betrayers awoke. One of them was on his ship, searching for his squad.

No, not searching. Hunting. Mere five minutes ago, there were ten full squads stationed on his vessel. Now, Coba's HUD showed terrifying information. The squad he commanded was the only one left.

And what of the squad? The Tech-Sergeant took a quick glance of his subordinates. Nine Moas, one shield Osprey. Oh, and the crewmen. Ten men, indoctrinees, the lot of them. They simply aimed their Deras at the doorframe, as if this was just another field operation. Unfeeling, unmoving. There was something wrong about their kind.

Under his breath, Coba made a promise to himself. If he got out of this situation, he'd have to do something about—

It was here.

A muscular humanoid... thing stood just beyond the door frame. Its golden, metallic skin gleamed, reflecting the powerful lights pointed at it. It had no eyes, yet it somehow seemed disoriented.

Perhaps there was a way... Coba knew of this particular Betrayer beast. They called it a Rhino, but the name mattered not to him. What was important is that it was tough. Yet, some had taken it down. Maybe, if it was truly blinded, it would not see the—

It did not see the crate. Even with the automatic noise compensation all Corpus helmets had, the explosion was truly deafening. The Betrayer beast gave off a loud, animalistic cry. Was it in pain? There was a lot of smoke, but Coba could see that the metal shell on the Rhino was gone, replaced by a red exoskeleton. Now was the time! The Tech-Sergeant uttered a single command, and the room was suddenly filled with deadly projectiles, all headed towards the weakened beast.

Except it was not truly weakened.

The Rhino didn't even move to dodge. No, it merely made some arcane movement with its arms, and, just like that, it was covered in the golden metal again. Oh... no...

Tech-Sergeant Ayvee could do little but watch. Sure, he squeezed the trigger on his Supra, and the massive machine gun fired a deadly salvo, but how can one hope to hit such a fast target? The Betrayer beast seemed slow and lumbering at first, before it pulled off a pair of axes from its back. With them in its hands, nothing could stop it. Slide, spin, two Moas down. Slide, spin, the osprey and three of the crewmen, all gone in one foul movement. And then, in two blinks of an eye, everyone was dead. Everyone except Coba Ayvee.

No more thinking. No more reason. Coba was driven by pure instinct and fear, firing his weapon wildly at the Betrayer, no matter how little it did. The beast cared little. It faced him, and shot itself in his direction by some arcane, long-forgotten Orokin mechanism. Before he could even react, Coba was struck by hundreds of kilograms of murderous mass. The impact sent him flying like a ragdoll, right into a nearby wall.

So, this was it. Coba sat motionless. His helmet was gone, blown off my the sheer kinetic force of the beast's massive body. He tried to stand up, in some sort of a last, defiant stand, but... he couldn't feel his legs. Nothing to be done. For the first time in ten years, tears filled his eyes.

Footsteps, clanking against the cold metal floor, heralded the slow arrival of the beast that murdered an entire ship in a matter of mere minutes. Why was it so slow? Why didn't it just slide, spin, and end this? Was it toying with its prey?

Coba looked up, his vision blurry, and came face to face with the Rhino. Its eyeless visage was turned to him, the emblem of an Orokin Key being the only thing suggesting facial features. Did it... take mercy? A sliver of hope found its place in the despair. Could Coba see his—

* * *

One swipe of the dual axes, and the Tech was gone. There was no other way.

The Lotus said that there were one hundred and thirty seven active combatants aboard the vessel. The crying Tech was number one hundred and thirty seven. This was a different time, before she changed her approach to these missions. All hostiles were to be neutralised.

Her ways were strange, but who was this Tenno to defy her? She, the voice of guidance, hidden Void knows where, was the first thing the Tenno heard when it was time to awake. Suddenly, they were all in this strange, mysterious solar system. The clones called them scum, the Corpus called them Betrayers, and the Infested... the Infested were strange. In this chaos, this Lotus continued to guide the Tenno, telling them where and when to strike. She never really explained the details, but why should she? There was work to be done, and work was done, all in the name of balance of the Origin system. Whatever that meant.

This particular Tenno, the one behind the Rhino, had nothing left to do on this empty vessel. A quick return trip to the orbiter was in order. There, Ordis, a type of ship AI named a Cephalon, would say something mildly amusing. After that the Tenno would find another mission, and the cycle would begin anew, until it was time to sleep. Every day, just like that. Sometimes, making new weapons or painting Rhino and the other Warframes was in order. A strange existence, but the Tenno were... the Tenno were Tenno.

Even then, something about the crying Tech hung upon this Tenno's mind. It led to questions, questions that begged answers, but could not be asked. Whys and wheres and hows, countless, but all pushed aside in the name of perpetuating the missions of the Lotus. Some were answered with what the Tenno called The Second Dream. For all the curiosity, this Tenno wished they were not.

Events, related to a lost moon and a rogue threat, showed the Tenno what they truly were, if not what they truly could be. Most took to the new knowledge in their stride. But not this Tenno.

There is a story here, better discovered on one's own. Suffice to say, this Tenno learned that there was something more behind the Rhino, the Excalibur, the Mirage, and all the other Warframes the Tenno used. A true, thinking, feeling... the Tenno were not mere machines controlling the Warframes, not... really. This would have been okay, were it not for the crying, dead Tech, and the memories of an age long gone. One question hung upon the Tenno's mind: Why?

To borrow a phrase, the gravity-sum of genocides made in the Lotus' name pressed hard upon the Tenno. Hundreds of thousands dead, why? The Infested were mindless creatures, but the Grineer, the Corpus... how many innocents died in the name of "balance"? And, even with this knowledge, why could this Tenno do nothing about it? Just keep doing missions? Was that it? Was there nothing about it? Surely not.

This denial gave way to rage, rage gave way to incoherent pleas to the Lotus, and then... then...

Ordis had to change the Orbiter. So many ways the Tenno tried to... no. This is a chapter of life better left to be forgotten. Not that anything tried would work.

The Lotus was not soulless. She truly cared about the Tenno, and it hurt her to see this one suffer so much. She tried so many things. None of them worked. All she achieved was to make this Tenno stop trying to... The Tenno settled into a routine. Just going through the motions. No self, no sense, just missions. Until...

* * *

Brown, metal surroundings, with unidentifiable echoes in the background. Each piece, each detail with a purpose, and nothing but its purpose. This was the nature of a Grineer galleon orbiting Saturn, and, in the one month of his life, Lancer K-1934 got used to it. He still hadn't earned a proper name. Names are for the worthy, and K-1934 wasn't worthy. He had to serve the Queens.

He had to serve the Queens. This is something he had known since he exited his birthing tube. To do that, he would listen to his superiors, and they would listen to theirs. This chain went up to the Queens, the glorious leaders who would make the Grineer rule this system, as they obviously deserve to. A life, a purpose, what else could a trooper ask for?

Maybe there was something more? No. Such thoughts were not Grineer. K-1934 had to guard this hallway. It was not his to question why. There was an alarm, there was an enemy, there was a duty to be done.

A Tenno, apparently. Just a single one. He heard of them. More weaklings to be crushed underneath the Empire's ferrite sole.

Oh, and there it was. Slim, female thing with a flappy hood and a single eye. Orange, brown, yellow-white, some kind of bow. Fodder for the Grakata rifle. K-1934 aimed, until he could no longer aim.

How did this creature come so quickly? It jumped, twirled in the air to launch forward, and it was upon the trooper already. A blow from a boxy thing on the Warframe's leg hurt too much. K-1934 fell to the ground like a stack of alloy plates. Pain. How could this happen?

Were the Grineer not superior? Why was the Warframe not dead from the mighty Grakata? Did the Queens... no. Can't think that. But why was there this water in K-1934's eyes?

* * *

It just wasn't fair.

A crying Grineer. Loyal to the Queens, hateful, dumb, horrible... crying. Truly, the universe had a sense of humour. Too bad this Tenno could feel nothing but sorrow and rage anymore. Might as well get some rage out of the system, and keep moving. One frustrated face slam did the job.

No, one frustrated face slam should have done the job. The Lancer was unconscious, but breathing. Now even a quick death. Why did it have to be so hard?

Sigh. It was probably the Ivara. Couldn't trust those new Warframes. A short pause, and then the Tenno prepared a finishing blow that never came.

There were one hundred and twelve enemies to be killed, and the lancer was number twenty three. The Tenno had a display to show the progress, of course. One could hardly be expected to keep a track of so many bodies. It read: "23/112."

Alive, but dead, as far as the Lotus cared.

Did she ever really say they needed to die? Didn't she want them neutralised? She surely mentioned killing... Too much thinking. The important part was that feeling of hope, and it was not to be thrown away to cold logic. After all this time, the Tenno found another way.

Ivara didn't need the Obex anymore. No more killing. Just the Warframe's bare hands. Only eighty nine more Grineer to go.

It was the hardest thing that Tenno had ever done. First, the old strategy. Just run into them and punch. Two or three Grineer troopers fell to it, but the Warframe took far too much damage for it.

Anything without Ivara's Orokin technology would have fallen without ever getting up again. The Warframe fell, but a revival surge put her back on her feet. Three surges left.

This approach was stupid. Ivara had certain powers. With the wave of a hand, she could become invisible. Some still found a way to fight, but a quiver full of trick arrows dealt with the cunning. The Tenno would use these powers, and nobody would have to die. And it worked, slightly.

Warframes were powerful, but their bare arms could do little about centimetres of metal plating the Grineer wore with ease. It took precision, cunning, and persistence to get that kill counter to increment. Room by room, the Tenno fought, leaving broken bones and comatose husks in wake of the Warframe. In some of them, everything would work just fine. But one badly aimed sleep arrow, and— two surges left.

Back into the fight, and— a rocket, before Ivara could even go invisible. Damned Grineer bombards. One surge left.

This would have been so much easier with the Obex, but it would kill, and this Tenno was tired of killing. No, a different approach. Roll, dodge the rocket, cloak, approach bombard from behind, blow to the back of the head. Only twenty five left. If only there wasn't a puddle of blood, slowly forming on the floor beneath the dead bombard's head.

Hope should have been broken, but this never came to pass. The Tenno behind the Ivara had been broken so much before that this grisly sight of failure had little effect. Even then, there was no way to ignore it. Would there be a return to the old ways? Just running through the motions of a mindless murderer? No. Anything but that. There had to be a different way.

There was a pit filled with molten alloy in the center of the room, with a short, thick metal wall surrounding it. The Tenno sat upon this wall, extended the Ivara's legs to dangle over the pit, and started thinking.

Some people would have to die. Pacifism was too difficult. Three revives burned, and this wasn't even a tough squad, nothing like the elites on a sortie mission. It was oddly comforting that many of them didn't deserve that kind of mercy.

The Grineer hated. There was no other word to describe them. The few among their number who survived the Tenno in a conscious state did nothing but howl guttural curses at the Ivara as she left them. Normal humans, one would reason, would cry in fear or pain, too exhausted to rage. This vehement fury was only worthy of pity. The world was probably a better place without them.

Somehow, there had to be a way of knowing who deserved death. This was work for the Lotus, but this Tenno could not trust her anymore. She never explained anything. She'd just give a mission, and send a reward after the mission was completed. Surely there was a grand plan behind it all, but from this particular standpoint, it all seemed like mass murder.

This was a tough situation, so the Tenno thought more. And more. One hour later, still thinking. Finally, after one hour and thirty seven minutes, the Ivara stood up. A decision had been made.

Answers were needed, and, if the Lotus wouldn't provide them, they would be found on one's own. First, to find out more about the crying Tech. There was no plan; it would be a matter of rolling with the punches until knowledge was obtained. The Tenno still didn't feel "whole", so to speak, but now, there was a purpose to it all. But first things first. There was the matter of the unlucky twenty five.

In retrospect, it was strange that they didn't interrupt the thinking process, but stranger still was the kill counter reading "112/112". It all seemed like some sort of weird system glitch, but the waypoint to the extraction dropship was flashing.

After thirty three seconds, the Tenno was flying through space towards the orbiter and away from the galleon. Back on the Grineer spaceship, a squad of twenty five was getting anxious, still bracing for an attack... but never mind that.

So much work awaited in the future, work that had to wait for a more pressing matter.

Kneeling on a round, elevated metal plate in the orbiter, the Tenno stared at the planet of Saturn slowly spinning around itself. It was a calming view that helped a broken mind focus. It would be a while until [the answers needed would truly come](https://www.reddit.com/r/Warframe/comments/55pa57/this_is_what_we_fight_for/), but for now, it was all about the journey. Tomorrow, the first step towards this brighter future would be taken, but now?

Sleep.

* * *

And the Lotus watched her child dream.

Her intelligence was incomprehensibly vast. She would guide hundreds of Tenno combat squads and weave data collected from the entire solar system into a single vision, all at the same time. Judgements and aid requests and, yes, combat missions, all given out with immaculate speed as soon as they were needed. She was the judge, the jury, the executioner, the commissioner, the lawyer... These were the things that went into running an interplanetary guerilla campaign, and the Lotus had grown exceedingly proficient at them. Therefore, the fact that she this child intrigued her meant something.

This Tenno was not the only problem child. Tens of thousands of Tenno, all with variations of the same problem: a loss of purpose, or, worse, a feeling that they are not doing the right thing. Death was not an issue for the Tenno, but this was. Without purpose, the children would go to sleep and never wake up. The Lotus knew the exact, excruciating numbers, and every loss hurt her. She tried to give them rewards just for waking up every day, but this was an attack on the symptom, not the illness itself.

It might have not seemed like it, but The Lotus truly cared. She wanted to make the system a better place, and she used the numbers from countless data retrieval missions to achieve that. Far more often than not, cold logic dictated that tens of innocents had to die so that thousands of colonists would survive. There truly was a purpose, but she kept the details hidden from her children. Humanity was hard to come by with such an inhuman job, and there was no way she could tell them the full truth without endangering the lives of the weak and the unable.

She would have cried, if someone like her were able to cry.

For the last two hours, a large fraction of her full attention was focused on this Tenno. A Tenno that would not kill. How strange, how fascinating, how... human. It was not a plan to last, but some things were made to happen, and a lost child found its way. There was something about those events that suggested a solution of the problem. A seed of an idea found its way into her mind. But it was just a seed. Those things, they take time.

There were a lot of things to be taken from this strange mission. Data to be weaved into the master plan which would see the Origin System eventually freed from its tyrannical overlords. Until then, the Lotus returned to what she did best. Countless squads required her guidance, and it was high time to provide it.


End file.
